Mumbai Food: Try these alternatives to flour for a great keto diet

Anirudh Ganeriwal with the koftas. Pics/Ashish Raje

With the Keto diet, you will lose weight for sure, but also, your energy levels will stay up all day," says Anirudh Ganeriwal, menu curator and co-founder, Food Darzi. Keto diet is well known for being a low-carb diet, where the body produces ketones in the liver to be used as energy, and Ganeriwal prepares complete Keto meals for individuals who don't want, or know, how to implement the diet in the right way.

As they make almost 200 personalised meals a day, Ganeriwal and his team often got the feedback that clients wanted something crispy in their meals. So he decided to add jalapeno cheese balls to the mixture. One of the tricks that Ganeriwal swears by is almond coating to replace the carb-laden flour coating. "The preparation is easy. You ground the almonds into a flour, and then add spices like oregano, chilli flakes and rosemary to it. You can then coat the cheese balls with this flour, and freeze it for the night. The next morning, just take them out and deep fry then." These cheese balls can then be consumed by themselves, or used in a malai kofta dish, which Ganeriwal serves with a keto roti, made of the same flour.

To complete the meal, he adds a strawberry chhena. The chef also says that the almond flour can be used in dishes like fried fish, chicken lollypops, chicken wings and beetroot patties. The almond flour is also used to thicken up south Asian gravies in the place of corn starch.

The most important thing to take care of while using almond flour is that the patties or koftas have to be frozen overnight. "If you don't do that, then the almond flour will flake off. Another thing to take care of is to use a non-stick pan, or else the flour will stick to the surface and come off." Ganeriwal also offers a solution if one is allergic to almonds. Just replace the almond flour with watermelon seed flour. The chef himself swears by this diet. "I feel light all day."